Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Onions

But also, it's because of a chemical irritant called syn-propanethial-S-oxide, says chemist Eric Block, who has written the authoritative book on onions — and other alliums."See,
the onion is a perennial bulb that lives in the ground with lots of
critters who are looking for a snack," says Block. "So it has evolved a
chemical defense system."That is to say, onions want to make us cry — so we'll stop trying to eat them (not that most of us are deterred)."The
way the onion bulb is designed, then, is ingenious," Block says. Within
each onion cell, there's a little glob — a sealed vacuole — filled with
enzymes, he explains. When you bite or cut into an onion, these
enzyme-filled blobs break open, releasing their contents, which then mix
with other chemicals inside the onion cells. "And then," Block says, "a
whole cascade of chemical processes happen within an instant."

Of course, the easiest way to stop the tearing is to toss the onions in the fridge for about five hours (or even a day).

Be sure to check out Ava and C.I.'s "TV: Chelsea lately?" about Chelsea Handler's new Netflix talk show.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016. Chaos and violence continue, Falluja's still
not 'liberated,' Sunnis continue to be persecuted, the White House
continues to avoid attempting a political solution, and much more.

The same old same old continued in Iraq today. The US Defense Dept announced:

Strikes in IraqRocket artillery and bomber, attack, ground-attack, fighter and
remotely piloted aircraft conducted 20 strikes in Iraq, coordinated
with and in support of the Iraqi government:

-- Near Baghdadi, two strikes destroyed an ISIL boat and an ISIL mortar system.

-- Near Beiji, two strikes struck
an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, two ISIL
vehicles, two ISIL vehicle-borne bomb, and an ISIL tunnel system and
denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Kisik, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL assembly area and an ISIL weapons cache.

-- Near Mosul, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL vehicle and an ISIL tunnel.

-- Near Qayyarah, six strikes
struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed three ISIL bunkers, two ISIL
tunnel entrances, an ISIL command-and-control node, two ISIL mortar
systems and six ISIL boats and denied ISIL access to terrain.

-- Near Ramadi, a strike destroyed an ISIL weapons cache.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike destroyed an ISIL boat.

-- Near Tal Afar, a strike destroyed an ISIL bunker, four ISIL
weapons caches, an ISIL assembly area and an ISIL beddown location.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic
events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a
single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a
single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle
is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons
against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for
example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or
impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not
report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number
of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual
munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in
counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a
strike.

And at the Pentagon today, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook gave an update on Iraq:

In Fallujah, Iraqi Security Forces, led by the
Counter Terrorism Service continue to make progress. About a third of
the city has been cleared of ISIL forces, and Iraqi forces continue to
advance at a rate of about five to 10 percent of the city per day, being
careful to safeguard the lives of civilians and limit property damage
to the extent possible.We continue to provide coalition air support; there have now
been 85 strikes over the last four weeks, four in the last 24 hours. We
are flying strike missions every day in the fight for Fallujah.In the north, the Iraqi push towards Qayyarah from multiple
axes also continues to make progress. Iraqi forces moving north from
Baiji advanced another six kilometers today, overcoming ISIL defenses
along the way.Meanwhile, Iraqi forces moving from the east also continue
their push. We are, again, providing significant coalition air support
for these efforts as well.

Which is a happy way to spin. AP's a little more blunt
as they quote Col Christopher Garver in Baghdad explaining that the
'liberation' of Falluja proclaimed last week hasn't really taken place
yet:

Only a third of Fallujah has been “cleared” of Islamic State militants, the U.S.-led coalition
said Tuesday, days after the Iraqi government declared victory in the
city west of Baghdad, which was held by the extremists for more than two
years.
Fighting continues despite the fact that, as Pakistan's THE NEWS INTERNATIONAL notes,
"Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory last week after the
national flag was raised above the main government compound."

Thousands of people are fleeing the Iraqi city of Fallujah despite claims by the Iraqi government to have liberated it from Isis last Friday.Around 30,000 people were reported to have fled the city last week.
The United Nations believes over 80,000 people have left in recent
weeks, with refugee camps struggling to cope.The city was captured by Isis in 2014. Iraqi forces, backed by US and
Australian air power, have been waging an assault on Fallujah for
several weeks.The army is still bombarding the city relentlessly despite the tens of thousands of civilians still trapped there.Karl Schembri of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which runs refugee
camps in the area, said, “This comes after months of besiegement.“They have been eating rotten dates and animal feed.”A report by Human Rights Watch earlier this month said there were
“credible allegations” of abuses by Iraqi forces during the fighting.These include allegations of summary executions, beatings, disappearances and mutilation of corpses.A number of people fleeing the city also claim to have been tortured by militias backed by the Iraqi government.One of them, Abu Muhammad, said, “They would beat us with water
pipes. They would take turns to torture us. My hands were tied behind my
back, and one of the militants sat on my chest after he got tired of
beating me.

“He just threw himself on me. I felt my ribs breaking. I screamed in
pain. I spat blood. I asked for water, but I was denied even that.”

We heard Sunni civilians fleeing the fighting bitterly complain their
homes had been targeted by Shia militia helping the Iraqi security
forces surround the city. There is evidence too that men of fighting age have been abused and tortured by some of those same Shia militia. Aware
of the danger of a widening sectarian gulf in taking the city, the
US-led coalition has consistently warned the Iraqi government it will
withdraw its military support if those Shia forces enter the city
itself. The fighting has already left much of Falluja in ruins and tens of thousands of its citizens displaced. If the Iraqi government wants to return order, it will have to show quickly it is making efforts to rebuild. Without homes, hospitals and schools, there will be plenty of lingering resentment. Any so-called "victory" will be hollow without a dividend for peace.

Iraq desperately needs to relearn the lessons from that era to win its
war against the Islamic State. Today, Ramadi lies in ruins after a
combination of Iraqi forces supported by U.S. airpower, some Sunni
tribal fighters, and Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces wrested it from
Islamic State control. The city of 400,000 people was destroyed in order
to liberate it — and now Fallujah faces a similar fate, as Iraqi forces
pushed farther into the city over the weekend. The limited reporting coming out of the area tells a story of atrocities against civilians from both the Islamic State and Shiite militias.

He goes on to cite three lessons learned when he was fighting in Ramadi.

The first one? "Killing off terrorist leaders is only a short-term fix."

And it doesn't address the reason the Islamic State got a foothold in Iraq to begin with.

These latest outrages from incoming
al-Hashd al-Shaabi fighters will only fuel the belief among Sunnis that
they are best served by Sunni administrations – however brutal.

Islamic State has repeatedly invoked the vulnerability of the Sunnis
across the Levant to justify its violence. This is the constituency in
whose name it claims to act and whose interests it claims to defend.

Shortly after IS first captured Mosul, in June 2014, the group released
a video, aimed at Iraqi Sunnis, explaining how both the West and Iraqi
Shias had conspired against them in 2003. The result had been a decline
in Sunni fortunes and increased insecurity as Shia death squads sought
revenge after decades of repression and abuse.

This resonated strongly with Sunnis such as the Albu Mahal and al-Qa’im
tribes, which had supported the US-led “awakening”, a military strategy
initiated in 2005 to encourage Sunni Iraqi tribes to fight against the
insurgency initiated by al-Qaeda. IS captured the heads of those tribes
and forgave them for fighting alongside the West against al-Qaeda in
Iraq. We are not accustomed to seeing videos of IS pardoning captives,
but this was as careful and calculated as any of its ultra-violent
theatre. The exercise was designed to project the group as a bastion of
Sunni honour and security.

That is the story behind so much of IS’s strength today: the fears of
the vulnerable Sunni poor over whom militants govern. Remove that
constituency, and the group would collapse. But the Obama administration
has done little to allay Sunni fears. Rather, it has exacerbated them
by launching air strikes against IS targets in Fallujah, fuelling a
perception that it is working hand-in-glove with Shia militias loyal to
Iran.

Despite
priding itself on freedom from the sectarianism that has plagued
militias such as Badr, the ICTS seems to be maintaining a strategic,
suspicious relationship with the Hashd.

On June 17, The Daily Beast
witnessed Hadi al-Amiri, leader of Badr, meeting with Abdulwahab
al-Saadi, leader of the operation to retake Fallujah. Several other
leaders from the ICTS also were present.

Earlier that day, al-Saadi had criticized the Hashd, telling The Daily Beast,
“The civilians see the Hashd as militiamen who can’t be controlled,”
yet one of al-Amiri’s bodyguards asserted that the two men meet about
three times a month. The ICTS blocked The Daily Beast and other journalists from the meeting.

The
overt cooperation between Badr, a sectarian militia, and the ICTS, the
one branch of the Armed Forces that has avoided sectarianism, will
further divide Sunnis from the Iraqi government.

Even
the Shia militias in the northern suburbs have tarnished the Iraqi
government’s attempts at a nonsectarian campaign in Fallujah.

Omran
Wali, another Kataib Hezbollah commander in al-Saqlawiyah, claimed, “We
have been welcoming the civilians and treating them very well, bringing
them to the camps for internally displaced people.” But an official
investigation revealed that Shia militias have killed 49 civilians
in the northern suburbs, and another 643 are missing. Iraqis are
discussing rumors that the militias executed those missing in
retaliation for an ISIS massacre at Camp Speicher near Tikrit in 2014.

That's US State Dept press spokesperson John Kirby at today's press briefing explaining the money the US is giving:

Speaking of those displaced by conflict, in light of recent events in
Iraq and in response to the UN high commissioner for refugees’ recent
appeals for emergency needs in Fallujah, the United States is today
announcing an additional $20 million in humanitarian aid to UNHCR’s Iraq
response. This will be part of a larger package of humanitarian
assistance that will be announced later this year. So there’s more aid
coming, and I would note that more than 3.3 million Iraqis have been
internally displaced since 2014. More are expected to flee in the coming
days and weeks. And we’ve seen this, as I said, in Fallujah
specifically.In fact, the UN estimates that about 85,000 people have already fled
Fallujah. Yesterday we talked about upwards of 80,000. The UN estimate
now is 85,000. The UNHCR has identified camp coordination and camp
management as well as protection as its – as its most urgent priorities
in the Fallujah response. Other immediate needs include water and
sanitation, shelter, and food. Humanitarian agencies are responding to
the crisis, but more funding is urgently needed, and we urge other
governments to contribute generously to the UN’s Iraq appeals as we have
done.